


Ten Blocks of Brooklyn

by Rulerofthefakeempire



Category: Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Everyone Has Issues, Living Together, M/M, POV Bucky Barnes, Pining, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, This is the saddest happy shit I've ever written
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-03
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-10 00:36:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12900219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rulerofthefakeempire/pseuds/Rulerofthefakeempire
Summary: There’s a little bit of him that wants Steve to leave, to get out of his apartment, get out of his life; reveal nothing, concede nothing, a social shadow. But he’s got love stitched into his soul and he can’t turn him away, can’t make him leave.It’s so embedded in him like shrapnel that if he tried to remove it he’s afraid he’d fall apart. So Steve can stay. Steve can stay for as long as he wants, Steve can stay forever, can sleep on his couch, eat his food, whatever he wants for as long as he wants. Because he’s stuck living in the same ten blocks of Brooklyn and he couldn’t untangle himself from Steve Rogers if he tried.





	1. Chapter 1

 

And then the bus rolls up like only sweet relief from the cold can, thoughtlessly, like it doesn’t understand how grateful he is to see it. He slips aboard, hoping that no one will notice one extra passenger, only slightly shady looking and willing to stand if an old lady needs to sit down. Which he does, staring out the window, watching the rain come down hard like the sky’s been holding it in all day and just can’t help itself. The bus ride is peaceful. He holds onto the pole, hikes his backpack further up his shoulder and looks around the seats.

If you could swap out the smartphones for newspapers, he could swear he was still in the Brooklyn of his youth, like when he was a kid. Like when they both were kids. But he knows its not. He shouldn’t have come back, should have found somewhere new, tried again, tried to be better. But like the rain, he can’t help himself; couldn’t stop looking around every street corner hoping for some echo of his former self. Holding up a picture of what he used to know to what is, trying to see the streets and read their new names, try not to mourn the buildings demolished and rebuilt again and again since he last stood on their sidewalks.

He wanted to rebuild brand new, but he couldn’t leave what was left of his foundations. Couldn’t find it within himself to forget what he remembered, couldn’t find it within himself to rewrite the narrative. So he gets off the bus. Offers the old lady his arm on the way down. And he smiles at her, because he’s stuck living in the same ten blocks of Brooklyn, but he’s not a barbarian.

And when he walks along he keeps his head down, shoulder’s hunched forward, making a grocery list in his head to distract him from the water seeping through his clothes and dribbling down his spine. He remembers sitting still, the slip of the slippery trigger, the water on his eyelashes seen through the scope, his body sinking slowly into the mud, becoming a part of the foliage; waiting for something to give, for the shot to line up, for the target to step outside. But he doesn’t kill, he makes himself get up and leave because that’s not what he does anymore, not even in his mind. That’s not what he does anymore.

Instead he buys milk, a chocolate bar, and some pasta and goes home. And the rain doesn’t bother him.

….

The teenager is pleased to see him, the teenager is always pleased to he him. It comforts him that its always the same teenager, loitering behind the register, floppy fringe, smartphone or newspaper depending on the century he’s choosing to see through.

“Hey man, good to see you.”

When he first started coming here he used to get a “sir”. He’s either been promoted or demoted to “man” or “dude”. He pushes wet hair out of his eyes, leaves his backpack by the door and tries to put his appearance back together.

“Really coming down out, isn’t it?”

He used to be so good at this, he used to be able to string a sentence together, talk about the weather for decades, be charming and safe and solid. But now he’s just stuck there like how he’s stuck in Brooklyn, dripping onto the carpet, trying to give a little bit more each day. So he smiles, because he’s only got half a sentence, and the teenager is the only person who is ever pleased to see him.

“Soggy,” he says, like it’s got some secret behind it, something bigger. He’s trying to give all the gifts he can. It’s always hard in the beginning, that moment where he’s greeted, when he’s expected to respond. It catches him off guard every time and he knows that give it ten minutes, and he’ll figure it out. He’ll be able to put more than two words together and give it enough meaning to prolong what he hopes could be friendship another day further.

The teenager grins at him.

“Just so you know, we’ve moved the classics section from the far wall to the third aisle.”

“Okay.”

He gets two movies because he feels like he deserves it and this guy at work told him to watch a specific one. He stares at the sign above the shelf. “Classics” big bold letters. A concept he can’t quite accept, unable to figure out how to put it all so far behind him, so long ago. He saw some of these movies in the cinema; he remembered the people in them as people out there, living their celebrity lives. He can’t quite let Henry Fonda die. So he watches all his films, some sort of homage, some sort of apology for missing it all.

When he reaches the desk he asks the kid how school was. Puts the question together like he can tell how to speak. He’s rewarded eagerly for any interest. The teenager could talk the ear off of a game show host. So while he gets rung up he listens to the woes of high school, and how Bianca Turner is doing, and the modern world is not fun if your aged 14 – 20. He takes the information as well as he can. He tries to show his gratitude through his interest, his lingering at the counter, a few follow up questions, and a courteous goodbye. He tries his best.

…

The noise is the near dead silent, but unmistakable sound of a window latch been flipped from the outside. It’s short, concise, and he’s up. His eyes open, his heartbeat barely jumping and he’s moving like all his limbs are mechanic, moving delicately through the air with a precision so precise it seems pre-programed. Like he knew what moving would look like before he even woke up. His feet move slowly, waiting, listening in the dark for the next move.

Over the sound of the steady traffic the window is shimmied open. Living room, he decides. There’s a shotgun hidden in the lining of the couch, his rifle is in the window seat the intruder must be crawling over right now, there are a belt of grenades in the kitchen cabinet, two handguns tucked into two separate compartments behind the bathroom sink and the toilet. He only keeps a knife and his arm in his bedroom with him because he doesn’t like that shit near him when he sleeps.

Feet hit the floor in his living room and he makes a decision. He flattens himself to the floor, unholsters the knife strapped to the underside of his bed frame and darts lightly across the floor, pressing his spine against the wall beside the door. He decides to leave his arm in the dresser, it would take to long too attach and instead he stands as still as he can, and listens. Footsteps, a torchlight shining past him through the door. He sniffs for the smell of gunpowder, listens for the cock of a pistol, waits to some weakness to be displayed.

He watches the torchlight swing around, lighting up the bedroom, everything except for him. He watches the light look around his living room, getting its bearings. He listens for the footsteps, tries to give the sound a little context, a little geography. And he doesn’t have time to tell himself that this isn’t what he does anymore before he’s got his knee jammed under the guy’s ribs, a kick to his chest and by the time he goes down, the knife pressed against his throat. And they’re silent for a moment before something in him kicks and he says softly, but with a lot of feeling:

“The fuck, dude?”

There’s sputter and croak and then:

“Bucky?”

God _dammit_.

….

He stares out the window, looking across the street at a pizza place that leaves its lights on all night. He’s been trying to find a way of telling them that the late night attendant is skimming cash from the register without being creepy about it. He doesn’t know what to say about a lot of things. Steve’s sitting on his couch, wrapped in a towel and he’s got nothing. He doesn’t know why he’s always so surprised that it ends up this way. But he doesn’t want this to be happening. And yet.

So he looks back, cereal bowl on the window seat, looks at him like he’s somewhere else. Steve is a newspaper, Steve is the Brooklyn he used to know, the building that never fell down, the old street sign. And he’s sitting on his couch, reading the back of the DVD cover on his coffee table. And it seems so neat, all of the things in the right spot, just the way he remembers.

He got this apartment because he wanted to have lived in it before. He wanted not to have to swap out the smartphones, wanted it to feel like time was irrelevant. Like he didn’t need to catch up because this was all that he had ever done. And there’s Steve. There’s Steve like he’s been sitting there for decades, like he remembers, like he’s always been.

So he tries to reach out, reach out with an arm that’s not there, with a voice he doesn’t have, with some hope that he’s lost. And he wonders if this is how it’s always been. Bucky trying desperately to make do with half the puzzle pieces, a Steve-shaped constant missing in his life until Steve comes along, climbs in though the window to sit on his couch and match the décor.

And there’s a part of him that can’t bare it, that he always ends up here, always ends up wanting to sit down, that no matter how hard he tries he’s still living in the same ten blocks of Brooklyn and Steve Rogers is back sitting on his couch. And that bit of him wants to jump out the window, hot-wire a car, procure a fake passport and go live in the Cuban jungle. But he doesn’t. Because he’s trying to be better.

So he sits the down.

Steve looks at him out the corner of his eye and Bucky stares him down, because you know what? Fuck him. This is his apartment and he’s not running anymore and Steve came in through the fucking window.

“The fuck are you doing coming in through my window in the middle of the night?”

And there they are again, hello darkness and all that. And even as he’s sitting there, the anger doesn’t stick. Steve could come bursting through the flood boards blasting police sirens and he wouldn’t be able to keep this shit up.

“Can I crash on your couch for a bit?”

He narrows his eyes because that’s not what he was expecting.

“But you have your own place. I know you have your own place. Crash on your own goddamn couch.”

“I know you know I have my own place. You sit at the café across the street every Sunday afternoon to make sure I’m still there.”

“That is so beside the point it’s not even funny.”

“I can’t stay there anymore.”

And he opens his mouth to say something smart, because anything Steve asks him his instinct is to respond “I can’t help you”, _I can’t help you. I’ve never been able to help you. Not enough. You are too proud and too strong and I don’t do that anymore. You are made of galactic stuff. I belong in an apartment in Brooklyn; you belong saving the whole world. I can’t help you._

But he can’t follow through because there’s bit of him that wants to help, that wants to offer a hand. And Steve looks tired, Steve looks sad and that tugs at every heart string he’s got.

“Don’t you have like safe houses and stuff?”

“And here I am?”

And the landlord thinks his name is Henry, he pays rent in cash, his mail gets sent to a postbox in Queens, his paycheck gets sent to an untraceable Swiss bank account which then gets transferred into the bank account of one Henry Fincher who died eighteen years ago in a car accident in Jersey. His coworkers think he served in Afghanistan and his arm is a high-tech medical trail prosthetic.

“I’m your safe house?”

“You’re my safe everything.”

And fuck, that’s not fair.

….

He goes to work the next morning; he showers, washes his hair, eats breakfast, puts on his arm and he goes to work. He puts the DVDs in his bag and he goes to work because he was poor in the last century and he’s poor in this one. There’s no veterans pension when you’re legally dead. And he’s trying to be better. Trying to be solid, trying to plant himself like a tree, find the channels where his old roots used to be.

So he leaves stupid Steve asleep on his couch.

He remembers when he was young it was all so obvious. It was so easy, so simple. He did what he had to do to keep them alive. They were partners; they were in it together, a two for one deal. And now, he just feels so separated. All he wants is to reach out, for it to be like it was before, to offer some security, give some love. But the ocean just seems so wide and Steve is just so far away.

So he goes to work. He lingers at the counter with a pen and paper, trying to figure out what to write. How to explain the way that he’s decided to live, how to say “I’ve gone to work” without saying anything at all.

There’s a little bit of him that wants Steve to leave, to get out of his apartment, get out of his life; reveal nothing, concede nothing, a social shadow. But he’s got love stitched into his soul and he can’t turn him away, can’t make him leave. It’s so embedded in him like shrapnel that if he tried to remove it he’s afraid he’d fall apart. So Steve can stay. Steve can stay for as long as he wants, Steve can stay forever, can sleep on his couch, eat his food, whatever he wants for as long as he wants. Because he’s stuck living in the same ten blocks of Brooklyn and he couldn’t untangle himself from Steve Rogers if he tried.

He leaves the phone number for work on the notepad by the door.

…

“Listen pal, we don’t have anyone here called Bucky.”

The voice on the other end of the line hesitates.

“Uh, Henry? Henry F?”

“Henry Fincher? Yeah, he’s just on his lunch break. I’ll grab him for you.”

…

Davey is fifty-four, a divorcee, and his kids won’t talk to him, but when he hands him the phone he smiles. And Bucky smiles back because Davey is nice to people even when he doesn’t have to be, and that deserves appreciation.

“Some guy calling you Bucky on the phone for you.”

He doesn’t respond, instead he delicately holds the phone to his ear and tries to answer like he doesn’t know who it is.

“This is Henry speaking.”

“Hey Buck,” Steve whispers, like he didn’t expect it to be him. It’s like a stab, slices right though him, sucks the air back out of his lungs. Bucky puts his head down on his desk and tries to figure out what to say, tries to figure out what he was thinking when he tried to postpone whatever he isn’t trying to say to a phone call.

“Are you okay?” He whispers back. “I didn’t want to wake you.”

He’s trying to tell the truth. He’s trying to make things easier, not think about it so much. There’s no need to make it so complicated all the time.

“I’m okay,” a whisper comes along the line, “I was worried about you.”

“You should stay, I’m sorry I didn’t say last night. Stay as long as you like, for old time’s sake.” The words come out of him like he can’t help it, like they are the water out of an overflowing glass, bubbling through him and out of his mouth.

For a moment the line is silent and then:

“Thank you.”

….

He goes home.

Davey bumps into him on his way out and he doesn’t flinch, he is learning not to flinch. Instead he smiles, because he’s learning how to do that too. He takes the subway back to Brooklyn. He takes DVDs back to the teenager, picks up some things for dinner and stands in front of the door, trying to figure out how to come home to Steve. There was a time when most of the doors he went through Steve was on the other side and it was easy. It was coming home and the lights being on, it was coming home and dinner being on the stove, it was coming home and Steve was on the couch with a sketchbook.

When he walks in Steve is on the couch with a sketchbook. And they’re back in this apartment, on a cloudy day in mid September in Brooklyn. And it’s almost the same. Like seeing a postcard of a time he’s missed, knowing he’s not there, knowing that it’s gone, but keeping it alive. He leans over the back of the couch, eyes like fireflies and there’s a picture of Henry Fonda, staring at him, looking all kind and paternal and just how he remembers.

“You still draw?”

Steve doesn’t look at him but he wants him to.

“A man’s got to have hobbies.” And Steve looks at him, all blue eyes and he’s so simple, so beautiful and understanding. He’s so clean and Bucky’s missed that. He hadn’t realized that he’d missed that, but he had. And now that its back he just wants to sit, bask is this little bit of simplicity. He’s constantly trying to convince himself that maybe everything would be easier if he just lived, just got through day after day, watch a movie, make dinner, pay the rent, stopped minding about good and bad. And then Steve shows up, and suddenly the shades of grey don’t suit him, the just living.

It’s only worth it if he’s there.

….

They eat dinner on the couch, feet up on the coffee table. They don’t watch the news because it’s hard to understand, and they don’t watch tv because there is no context for anything, so they just sit there. Starring at the blank screen.

“We should get Netflix.”

He’s been here not twenty-four hours and it’s all ready “we should get Netflix”. Dear god. _“We should get Netflix.”_

“Well Jesus fuck, Steven, when you have another fifteen bucks spare a month you can text me. Fuck off. “We should get Netflix” _God._ ”

And then Bucky hits him with a pillow.

 


	2. Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The morning takes him in like an old friend when he wakes up at seven ten because his alarm clock goes off at seven fifteen and the noise gives him a fright. The light is just beginning to reach his toes. He remembers that in the old apartment they used to keep the curtains up with clothes pegs.

_Two Weeks Later:_

Sometimes he only remembers the nape of a neck, the curve of a spine, sometimes all he has is the back of a knee, or a set of eyelashes. Little snapshots of a human; a figure that he can only sometimes give a name. He remembers waking up with hands in his hair, the sun on his back, wrapped up in their second hand sheets on their second hand mattress on their second hand bedframe. He remembers putting his hands forward, pushing them against a small chest, just to feel connected, just to feel a heartbeat that isn’t his.

And they’re so close it’s hard to tell which limbs are his own. And a voice that comes from just behind his ear whispers comforting things to him, telling him how it’s fine; they’re all going to be fine. There is only this moment; there is only the morning, only this figure wrapped around him.

When he wakes up on the couch they’re not close. Steve is an ocean away, face lit up by the tv screen, flipping through the channels with the volume down low. And they are so far apart that it could make him cry. Instead he just shivers with the sudden coldness of it all. There are no hands in his hair, just an ache in his neck.

“What time is it?” He croaks, sitting up, running his fingers over his head. Steve is all cheekbones in the blue light and when he looks his irises light up.

“About eleven thirty.” Steve smiles at him, but not enough.

He rubs the back of his neck, running his hands through his hair, wiping the sleep from his eyes. “I fell asleep,” he states numbly, rolling through the darkness in his head like a catalogue.

“So you did.”

His distress sits in the bottom of his belly like a stone and all he can do is sit, trying to figure out how recreate something he used to know, trapped by his own inability to reach out. Trapped by his own inability to explain what’s going on, ask for help, give a little more, dig a little deeper. But he tries; he tries to say something, opens his mouth, but can’t seem to get the words past his throat. So instead he gets up. He puts on his pjs, he takes off his arm, he soaks the dishes to clean in the morning and before he goes to bed he stops at his own bedroom door. Steve looks at him, face flashing in the lights, waiting expressionless for something that Bucky can’t give.

_You should come and sleep in the bed. I’m so comforted by you being here, but you’re so far away. I want to wake up next to you because you’re the only person I understand in this century and all I understood in the last one. All I do with my day is try to be happy with you nearby because I’m certainly not happy without you here. So you should come and sleep with me._

But instead all that he could manage was “I’m going to bed now.”

“Okay, goodnight.”

And then there is only silence.

…

He’s awake when the door opens because he listens to Steve’s breathing like how you listen to a white noise tape. When he gets up, Bucky knows it. He rolls away from the door because everything is so much simpler when he’s pretending to be asleep, when he doesn’t have to take responsibility for other peoples actions. Feet pad across the floor and he listens, eyes closed, lying on the sheets. The mattress dips with a new weight and they’re facing away from each other, but it’s like stale air being breathed into his old lungs, its like opening the curtains onto a dusty house, it’s like the poetry you wrote before you knew how to write good poetry. And in the darkness he smiles and listens to Steve’s breathing, and its like walls are being built around him to keep him safe.

…

The morning takes him in like an old friend when he wakes up at seven ten because his alarm clock goes off at seven fifteen and the noise gives him a fright. The light is just beginning to reach his toes. He sleeps on the side of the bed that is closest to the window and furthest from the door because you should always keep close to your exit strategy. And when the light comes through the curtains it makes him feel safe. He remembers that in the old apartment they used to keep the curtains up with clothes pegs.

Steve breathes beside him while he holds on to his alarm clock, waiting for it to go off in his hand. He stares at his ceiling and feels the light warm the bed sheets. He said that he would have coffee with Davey today because he thinks that he accidentally might have made a friend. Davey wants to help him; Davey doesn’t know just how out of his league he is. And he has to do that class in the evening. Maybe Steve can make dinner.

“Why don’t you just unplug it?”

His eyes flicker over to Steve, blue-eyed doll, blond haired all wrapped up in white sheets.

“Because then it will know that I’m afraid of it,” he hisses, like the alarm might hear them conspiring. Steve rolls over; shoulders broad like a workhorse, all shoulder blades instead of spine, muscle instead of bone, inner strength made external, and exoskeleton he doesn’t need anymore. And it doesn’t make quite enough of a difference. He was up for fighting regardless of his skinny ribs or strong lungs. And Bucky can’t quite let him go into alleys by himself in either state, and he still finds himself listening out for coughing in the night.

The alarm goes off and he jumps so hard that he throws it against the wall and it shatters. It lets out one last electronic wail before dying. Steve kicks him and the day begins.

…

He rings the home phone because Steve has a smartphone but neither of them really knows how to use it. The home phone has a pad next to it with all the numbers they know and only two green and red buttons. Steve picks up on the second ring.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

He stares out the window and then at the phone on his desk. It has way too many buttons.

“I forgot to tell you this morning, but I’m going to be home late, like maybe eight?”

“Why? You don’t have friends.”

“I have one friend, fuck off. But you know Davey? He’s running this class where vets teach young ladies self defense and he asked me to help out.”

“It worries me that I can’t tell whether your one friend is Davey or me. Where’s the class being held?”

“My one friend is the teenager that rents me movies. And it’s in the gym below work, three blocks down from that milkshake bar where that guy from high school used to play piano. It’s a pharmacy now.”

“That’s fair, I’ll see you at eight.”

…

He used to rig boxing matches.

He’d walk in, sixteen and pretending to be cockier than he was, explain how he used to fight in school and he wanted to win some cash. And these men, broad shouldered, prison and army tattoos alike, bearded and all of them a little drunk, would giggle at him and let him fight under the understanding that he would loose, and go home beaten and even poorer.

But no one fights harder than a sixteen-year-old boy with desperation under his nails and not enough money to pay rent.

And when the girls gather he’s reminded that these mats do not smell like booze and the air does not smell like cigarette smoke. The air smells like talcum powder and he doesn’t have to fight anyone for a dollar anymore. There’s a part of him that misses it, that remembers fighting was almost like mattering. But in the end there was always constant risk of being evicted, no money for food, being beaten up in the first round to win big in the second, a broken nose and a bruised eye socket.

“Good evening ladies,” Davey bellows, because he’s the sort of man who bellows. He joined the army in ‘81 and stayed until ‘99. He’s been in veterans affairs ever since. “Tonight I have a surprise for you.”

They’re all aged fifteen to twenty five and they’re looking at Davey like how you look at your favorite book from when you were twelve. Bucky supposes that all their dads look like him. Except he doesn’t drink and he’s stayed in shape. Bucky’s sitting on the edge of the fighting ring, leaning on the lowest rope, looking at them in their gym gear.

Davey gestures wildly to him, urging him forward to stand beside him, leaders to this group of young ladies.

“This is my friend, Henry, and he’s going to be helping out today.” Davey looks at him all conversational and such. “You’re a… you’re a sergeant, aren’t you?” He sees no harm in saying yes.

And the night continues.

…

The girls are more ruthless than he thought they wore. Davey splits them up, one group with him, the other with Bucky. He fends off questions about his arm. He calls it a prosthetic instead of what it is.

They have the tact not to ask him where the original appendage went.

They stand around in the beginning, holding onto their elbows, checking their phones, talking, but when they begin he can see the seriousness in their eyes. He didn’t have to convince them that knowing how to break someone arm might save their lives one day. They know.

So he teaches them how to break someone’s arm.

…

Steve’s waiting for him when he comes out and it occurs to him that Steve is always waiting for him. He’s standing on the sidewalk in a hoodie with his hands in his pockets, kicking rocks, and Bucky’s standing in the doorway trying to find a way of saying hello.

“Hey,” Steve grins at him, leaning forward. And Bucky doesn’t know how to say thank you for waiting all these years, so he just smiles and lets the door swing closed behind him. Steve reaches out to him and he reaches back with his one good arm and they’re suddenly walking along together, wordless. The darkness is encroaching and all Bucky can think is _‘I can’t help you.’_ Sometimes it’s all he can think when he looks at Steve, ‘ _I can’t help you’_ over and over again like a revolving door. _‘All I’ve got are old world issues and a budget, I can’t help you.’_

But Steve punches his shoulder and he keeps his mouth shut because now is not the moment for that. And the Brooklyn streets look like a Brooklyn he knows and the geography is all the same. He knows where he is and he knows whom he’s with. And Steve is staring forward like he knows too, face shining in the streetlights. They’re tough as the old bones and always have been.

But he still doesn’t know how to say thank you, how to give the sort of thank you that accounts for everything, for every gift given, every choice, every minute spent waiting. So he slips his arm through Steve’s and tries to pin down the version of himself that looks at Steve and see’s the only thing he’s ever done right.

And in some moments time is irrelevant, in some moments no time has pasted and he’s seventeen again, he’s seventeen again and he’s poor, but he’s good. And Steve is there and he’s poor, but good too. And Brooklyn under his feet thrums with the old rhythms and it feels like that bit of his life where he wasn’t in Brooklyn was so brief, and he can’t understand why all those years he spent in Brooklyn matters so little compared to the years he spent… not in Brooklyn.

And Steve holds onto him like he’s an anchor in time, keeping them solid, keeping them together. And instead of speaking, they get burgers and go to bed.

…

There’s a struggle in the darkness, suddenly, like a slap in the face, like someone reached down to where he was sleeping and yanked him out again. There’s a hand clamped around his wrist, another around his throat, squeezing hard, and he’s ramming his armless shoulder against some body writhing around on top of him, his heart in his throat. He can hardly breathe for the proximity, for the sound of his own terror in his ears.

“Stop,” he gasps because he can’t tell what’s going on and he can’t stop pushing against someone _stronger_ than him. Something in the someone slackens and he takes his moment like a handlebar and pushes. Steve rolls off him like boulder off a trapdoor and he slides on to the carpet.

The silence is palpable, just their breath echoing around the room, bouncing off each other. The pale moonlight is streaming in through the window and he’s trying to sit down with his own heartbeat, regain some composure. He searches inwardly for some reason, for some backstory, some understanding of why he’s shaking on his bedroom floor. It’s not him, he realizes. The fear is fresh in him, buzzing, ricocheting around his insides. When it’s him the fear is already a little bit stale by the time he wakes up, the fear already tastes a little like something he’s seen before.

This is new.

Steve slides off the bed next to him, pressed against his shoulder, breathing through his nose, sweaty to the touch. Bucky rolls through his emotions, trying not to let them overlap, trying to figure out where he’s going to land. The frightened anger slips by into only fright, which slips by in to concern and there they are. Sitting on the floor together, trying to contain their fear, keep that shit on the inside.

“Are you okay?” The darkness is silent.

“I-I had a bad dream.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.”

He can feel himself coming down, the adrenaline wearing off until they’re just sitting on the floor, dazed and tired at 3am. His new alarm clock glows at him and he gets up, because these games are games he’s played before. He remembers being young and the fits that would come in the night. No money for a doctor, no time. He remembers the old apartment; the old bed and the immediate panic of watching someone you love struggling to breathe, and then the calm that came after. The knowledge, the experience, the feeling of having done this all before and knowing what to do next.

He does his best and offers his hand.

“You should have a shower, it’ll make you feel better.”

…

There are certain things that are hard with one arm, but he’s got most of it down. His right hand is strong; it gets him by. And there’s a bit of him that knows what to do, he knows all of the answers to this test. He doesn’t think about how Steve likes cinnamon and nutmeg in his warm milk, but he reaches for the spice basket anyway. And he pours the mixture into the mug that Steve prefers and he’s trying to figure out how to make this better, how to make the fear easier to deal with but all he’s got is a favorite mug and some hope.

Steve’s back in bed by the time he’s got their mugs on a plate, hair still dripping. He’s holding onto his elbows in bed, staring, the window open, a breeze, and the smell of honey. Getting in to bed next to Steve is the most natural thing he knows how to do. It’s more natural to him that the jolt of a pulled trigger, more natural to him than breathing cold air, more natural than a uniform.

Together they sip warm milk with honey and spice in. And it’s like camaraderie, but quieter; living through each other’s nightmares, trying to lighten the load. The curtains move in the breeze and there is silence until there isn’t.

“You used to do this,” Steve raises his mug a touch, and what is there to say to that?

“Yeah.”

“Thanks.”

And it seems surprising that in reality, not that much has changed. The terror is there, the anxiety, the guilt, the depression, and the rage. But when you get down to the bones it’s still just him and Steve. Trying to rebuild their lives. Trying their best. And sometimes it feels like together they can keep the people they used to be under wraps. Sometimes it feels like together they can stop being those people.

But it slips through the cracks in their fingers and they’re awake at 3am trying to find a way of going back to sleep and waking up the way that they want to be, wake up all normal and fresh. Steve doesn’t look at him, but he puts his hand between them like he’ll meet him in the middle. He wants to meet in the middle.

“It’s easier with you here.”

It’s hard to find the response, because some days its all so big, some days he can’t find his way through those years spent being someone else to get back to Brooklyn. But, at least he’s trying to get back to Brooklyn now. Still, he can’t find the words, can’t find a way of saying, _‘I’m so glad you’re here, you keep me safe and I’m glad I keep you safe too. I hope that you never go anywhere, I love you so much. I just want you to be happy.’_ But he tries.

“It’s easier with you here too.”

The mug is warm in his human fingers and Steve is blinking sadly at the bed sheets, damp eyelashes and fresh pajamas.

“The dreams used to come damn near every night. I would wake up on the fire escape or three blocks away or sitting fully clothed in the bathtub,” Steve’s voice wavers and Bucky is hanging on every word. “I couldn’t figure out how to go to the grocery store or pay rent, I couldn’t… focus. I couldn’t stop being in a battlefield, everything still feels like a threat.”

And Bucky knows, he recognizes every word because every word he lives through it too. And he knows.

“I know,” he says, “And I’m sorry.”

Holding hands is harder when he’s only got one, but boldness comes at 3am, so he sets his mug down on the side table and tucks his hand into Steve’s. And he doesn’t mind about anything for a moment, because he’s trying to get back to Brooklyn and he’s starting to realize that so is Steve and its all just so fucked up, but they’re here.

And they’re here together, and that’s worth something even if it’s not.

…

They’re sitting on a park bench in the sun on a Saturday afternoon, because grass feels novel and they don’t have enough money to do anything else. Steve’s playing Sudoku puzzles in the back of yesterday’s newspaper because the old woman in the apartment across from theirs taught him how. The park’s not crowded, but they’re not alone either.

Bucky’s got his sunglasses on, arms up on the bench, checking out every new character, trying to figure out the stories. He checks everyone for a gun, looks in all the usual places for a lump or that particular pat of the rib or hip. He’s also just very nosy. He nudges Steve’s shoulder and gets a hum of acknowledgement.

“I think the couple over there is breaking up.”

Steve looks up and squints. The picnic table across the park has two people seated at it; one looking like this is a business meeting, an accidental friendship with a colleague, the other like they’re about to propose.

“How can you tell?”

“One of them just handed over a ring, and the guy hasn’t looked up in a while, but I think he’s crying.”

For a moment they’re just both staring at the couple. The woman’s got her hands together in front of her, knees together, shoulders squared, mouth a grim line on her face. The turn their heads to one side together.

“I bet if I can shine a light into his eyes, he’ll look up.”

“You do that and get back to me.”

And that’s how they spend their Saturday afternoon.

 

 

 


	3. Part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve laughs at him over breakfast, leans down on his knuckles, shoves cereal into his mouth and laughs. He smiles into his coffee and the morning light has caught his hair and it’s a beautiful scene. And he’s struck, constantly, by how much this moment makes sense. How much he was designed to do this, not the guns on the coffee table but the morning paper, not the combat, but just living. Just living his life over breakfast with Steve, he was meant to have a life like this.

He straightens her arm and lowers her chin because if she keeps trying to hit like that, she’ll strain her shoulder. She’s seventeen, the streets are dark when she walks home from work, and her mother is paying for the class. She demonstrates again. She’s not a good fighter. She hits like you push someone over, but she’s never going to be able to tackle someone with just her fists.

“Remember, you’re not trying to hurt you’re attacker, you’re trying to disarm them. Pinpoint your force, take them by surprise.”

She looks at him out of the corner of her eye and he smiles, because she should feel safe walking home at night. She focuses back on the bag and tries again. Jaw lowered; arm straight and loose, drawing back like he taught her to.

“Good, good. Keep practicing.”

She smiles at him and he moves on.

Fridays are easier now. The routine’s all set. And Davey’s across the gym with his set of girls, looking like their dads, cracking jokes, trying to explain to them how to keep themselves safe without telling them why the world is so unsafe. Bucky doesn’t go that deep; he can’t go that deep.

Outside, the rain starts to come down. It’s been brewing all day, the air outside smelt like heavy water, but the breeze was nice. He sees the rain hit the window, streak down the glass. The other girls are throwing they’re punches at their own bags, and he see’s all their problems in the ways that they hold their shoulders, or place their feet. One stands like a tower that stands for centuries, but pauses to look at the rain. Another stands loose, adaptable, fluidly moving like she is water in the air. People fight like how they are, like the people they want to be.

He weaves through them, adjusting elbows, trying to disprove all of those movie clichés, and heads toward the door. He yells out to Davey that he’ll be back in a second; Davey waves him off absently, trying to get his girls to understand the virtue of a good fall. Davey trusts him. Davey trusts him to leave and return.

So he does.

Steve’s standing at the desk, damp and beautiful, and the young lady debating whether to let him in is thinking that even if he’s lying he is just so beautiful. He catches the tail end of Steve’s sentence.

“… running a class with Davey, I was wondering if you could grab him for me.”

Her name is Anna; she runs the kick boxing class and sometimes helps out with the spin glass. She keeps her hair in a bun and sometimes she’s nice and sometimes she’s tired and you can tell the moment she opens her mouth. If Steve had been better at this he would have smiled, or relaxed, or said something funny, but instead he just pushes back his fringe and looks around like he’s making sure there isn’t anyone else to speak to.

In the gesture he sees Bucky standing a few feet away in his gym gear, watching him try and interact with the world like a fawn taking it’s first steps. Steve grins at him and he grins back, and then they look and grin at Anna who’s tired.

“Ah,” Steve says, gesturing, “never mind, thank you.” Bucky nods her way, and lets Steve in through the open door. She nods back with a confused but accepting expression and suddenly they’re back in the gym and the rain is still coming down outside.

…

“Listen buddy,” Steve walks in like an unexpected rainstorm, “I appreciate that you’re letting me stay here and all, but if you eat my fucking cereal in the middle of the night one more time so help me god I am going throw you out the goddamn window.” He gestures violently towards the curtains and slams the empty cereal box down on the bedside table. Bucky damn near chokes on his morning coffee.

Steve falls into bed next to him while he tries to keep his coffee from spilling with only one hand and very little warning.

“Sorry.”

Steve buries down into the bed linen like he used to do when he was smaller.

“You should be.”

They sit like old people, tucked together, trying to find excuses to touch each other, to establish and reestablish contact like excited space explores making sure the aliens are really there. It wasn’t like this when he was young, if he wanted to put his hand on Steve’s shoulder and leave it there that was fine. When he was young he could put his arms around Steve because he’d been putting his arms around Steve for as long as he could remember. There was no analyzing of his own motives, no questioning of why it was only ever Steve, because it had only ever been Steve.

Steve rolls over to face him and the proximity could kill him, so he puts his coffee cup on Steve’s temple and sits it there, because every dimension of himself is connected to Steve except physical, and it eats away at him until he closes the gap. Steve closes his eyes and so does he and he figures that if a younger version of him could see, there might be a smile, but probably not.

…

Davey rubs at his coffee cup while they watch pedestrians stroll by. The upstairs of the coffee shop is private, and comfortable, and nice. He remembers this building, it was a house then, he mother used to give flowers to the widow who lived here. He never went in until it became a coffee shop. There’s a little bit of him that is bothered by it, that there is no trace of that woman or his mother’s flowers, but mostly, the coffee is good and he feels safe.

“I met your roommate on Friday.” Bucky can feel his ears prick like a fox kept in long grass; he makes no moves. “Sweet guy, I had no idea you were so close.”

Davey knew that he’d gotten a roommate even though Bucky never said. Davey’s always smarter than he’s given credit for and when Bucky gets asked what he did on the weekend he describes what Steve did on the weekend.

“Yeah, he’s good.” And it’s hard to condense all their history down into three words even though he doesn’t want to explain it, even though he doesn’t want to reveal that he has feelings about anything for anyone, ever. “I didn’t want him to stand in the rain.” He tries to even out the playing field with a touch of truth, because he doesn’t like to lie.

“He adores you.”

And he’s killed people; he’s been tortured, mutilated and destroyed whole governments, and he still sputters into his coffee and goes red. And he knows that Steve likes him, Steve wouldn’t be living in his apartment if he didn’t, but somehow hearing it come out of someone else mouth makes it really real and he’s caught off guard.

He wipes the foam off his nose and tries to regain his composure.

“I like him too.”

He doesn’t make eye contact and Davey presses on.

“How did you two meet?”

And the story is very complicated, not only how they met, but also how they got here, how they got to be the people they are now. He thinks that maybe he should chill out, as the youths say. Not everything has to be so traumatizing. They were kids, and now they’re not. Maybe it doesn’t have to be so hard all the time.

“Uh, we were kids together, our parents were friends, and then we served together.” He smiles at the passersby, “he stayed on longer than I did, for, ah, obvious reasons.” He waves lightly with is silver hand and they giggle together at the reality of it all.

They sip their coffee.

“He doesn’t pay rent, does he?” And that’s a loaded question, there is some weight on it, some reasoning behind it, but he has no idea what that reasoning is. Maybe it’s a reference to something, what does it mean if your roommate doesn’t pay rent?

“Ah, no. But he didn’t pay rent when we were nineteen either, so I think I’ve come to accept it.”

Davey laughs and slaps him on the back.

“Well, I’m happy for you. We’ve all got to have someone in our corner.”

…

When he gets home the apartment is dark, and quiet, and empty. There’s a casserole in the oven and a note on the fridge and all of his things are sitting next to all of Steve’s things. He can’t tell which ones were his to begin with, and which ones were brought into his life like the settling debris after a hurricane. He can hardly remember where the guns are for all the new things.

He puts his hands down on the countertop in the dark of his own apartment, trying to tell why it feels so out of place to be here without him. This is his apartment. He pays the rent, but nothing feels entirely his. Even the body he lives in feels foreign, even the mind he thinks with. And maybe he should have resisted more. In the beginning.

When he was young he didn’t know any better, he gave and gave and gave because he didn’t know how long forever gets to be. And now he’s older and it’s a century later, and he’s still stuck in the same ten blocks of Brooklyn trying to identify the bits of him that can still live without Steve.

The vulnerability creeps under his skin, sings through his nerves, rides through his veins, creeping further and further into him. He should have resisted more, kept him at arms distance, taught himself how to live half empty.

…

From the bedroom he listens to Steve come in, use the key Bucky gave him on the old lock. He pads around living room, his bag on the floor, his keys hit the countertop with a jingle and Bucky is sitting on the window sill in the bedroom, waiting to be sought out. Waiting to be rebuilt like he always is when Steve is in the room.

Steve’s rounds the corner and Bucky is sitting there, already smiling at him because he can’t help himself. But then he stops, because it hurts too much. He scrubs at the residue on the barrel of the revolver because he’s cleaning his guns because no matter how much he tries to be better, this is who he is. So he’s cleaning his guns. All of them, all at once, he even got the shotgun from within the lining of the couch even though he’ll have to sew it back up again.

Steve grins at him, and Bucky can’t fault him. He walks in to a table full of guns and acts like this is just what people do with their afternoons and that he can help. He sits in the chair beside the window and starts to dismantle the second handgun.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you got back, how was work?”

Small talk doesn’t even feel like small talk when Steve does it. Steve-talk.

“Eh.” He shrugs and doesn’t look up because he feels so exposed, like if he looks up, he won’t be able to breath because Steve will see right through him to his soft, gooey, feeling-things interior. “It was fine. How’s Molly?”

Steve takes the rag from him to start cleaning the barrel.

“She’s good. Her daughter’s coming for the week and she wanted me to set up her spare bed.” While Steve’s looking down at the gun Bucky takes the moment to look at him, soft hair, blue eyes. He’s faster than Steve, pushes his eyes away the moment that Steve looks like he’s going to look up. “Did you see the casserole she made us?”

That explains that, Steve is not a good cook.

“Yeah, she’s a good lady,” he starts to put the revolver back together. “You should know, Davey’s invited us to dinner Thursday night.”

…

He eats some of Steve’s cereal because he had a bad dream. He has his own cereal, but a bit of him likes how he has two types now because at least he’s not alone anymore. That bit of him is weak and the rest of him is constantly trying to have it killed, but in the middle of the night, it’s easier just to be comforted by the only bit of trust he’s got left. He doubts damn near everything, waking up before dawn wondering if the sun will rise, but Steve has lasted this long, Steve waits for him, Steve is the building that never falls down, the coffee shop.

He washes up, tries to claw the wobbly feeling out of his belly, and tries to figure out how the fuck he got here. He feels old, and bewildered, and how the fuck did he get here? He never asked for this, when he decided to try living he never said he would pair it all up with every confusing feeling he’s every had, because this is not new.

But it was easier then. It was all easier then. They were young and alone together and trying their best. And it just made sense to come home to each other in the end, no need to buy another bed even in those little moments when they had the cash; it was simple because it was thoughtless. And now he can’t stop thinking about it. Every night when they go to sleep he thinks about it, wants to assert and reassert every position. Explain to the world what’s going on here. About how there’s only the room for the one bed in the bedroom and the couch makes you’re neck hurt and they’re just friends, they were just friends before too. All of this is fine. And he’s never had any feelings for anyone ever in his whole life.

But when he gets back in to bed, he can’t help himself:

“I’m sorry I was mad at dinner, I missed you while you were gone.”

Steve’s eyes flick open because he wasn’t asleep; he’s the one that wakes Bucky when he has a bad dream, he’s the one that makes sure he comes back to bed.

“It’s okay,” he whispers, “I’m glad you were here when I got back.”

And then they go back to sleep; because this old thing is the only thing he’s ever know certainly how to do.

…

Steve laughs at him over breakfast, leans down on his knuckles, shoves cereal into his mouth and laughs. It’s the last of his cereal; it’s three days before shopping day. That’s two mornings eating toast. But he understands, and even if he doesn’t, they’ve known each other long enough to know that nothing is done without meaning.

“Okay, so first, you can fuck off.” Bucky flips an egg, because eggs are cheap nowadays, even if you buy the ones where the chickens have personal space. Davey told him about the fact that some chickens don’t have personal space, or fresh air, or anything, and it made him feel very uncomfortable about just buying the cheapest ones at the store. But he’s done a lot of making amends over the past year. “And second, the fuck is it?”

Steve smiles into his coffee and the morning light has caught his hair and it’s a beautiful scene.

“When we were ten, you tried to sell all of you’re sister’s dolls to buy me a birthday present, but when they didn’t sell, you just gave me fifteen little ragdolls and I had to give them all back to your sister anyway.”

And he was so young then, so young.

And now he feels so old, like an ancient, dying thing, some forgotten deity, looking down on his last worshipper, the one so devoted that it’s gone on even as long as this. Or maybe it’s the other way around. Maybe he is the last worshipper of a deity weaving in and out of fashion, but that no one can quiet see but him. Because there will always be a little bit of Steve that, no matter how much he changes, is his to keep warm.

And he’s struck, constantly, by how much this moment makes sense. How much he was designed to do this, not the guns on the coffee table but the morning paper, not the combat, but just living. Just living his life over breakfast with Steve, he was meant to have a life like this. But somewhere along the way it got broken down and fractured and sometimes he can see the right picture and sometimes he can’t.

And all he wants is to walk over there, walk over there and kiss him, thank him, marry him, whatever; place the last puzzle piece. But he doesn’t. Because he’s afraid. And maybe it’s only him that was designed for this.

Instead all that comes out of him is:

“I would have sold the whole house for you.”

…

Steve goes for the phone because Bucky’s in the bedroom, and technically he lives here too. He picks it up like he’s used to it, and from the doorway, Bucky watches. Something in him still listening for the voice of the dispatcher, asking if they’d like to accept the call. They don’t have dispatchers anymore. He wonders what happened to them, what they did once they were made obsolete.

“Oh, Bucky? Yeah, he’s just-” He’s cut off and Bucky listens, because Steve doesn’t know he’s listening, he could say anything. “Its what I’ve always called him. His middle name is Buchanan.”

Something on the other end of the line makes him smile.

“No, no, he told me. I’m looking forward to it. It’ll be good to get out.”

There’s nodding and humming and a conversation unraveling like a spool of thread in front of him.

Steve suddenly rubs the back of his head.

“I’m sorry. But I think he’s already gone to bed, I could check on him if you’d like, or get him to call you back in the morning…?”

“Sure, sure, I’ll let him know. You have a nice night.”

Steve puts the phone down and he’s smiling like he used to do, looking more and more like himself as the days go by. And Bucky doesn’t let him know that he’s there, doesn’t make a sound as he creeps backwards thinking that in this life, this moment at least, he lives in a pair. There is another in this world that goes with him and who he goes with, that would get sold in a box set, a two for one deal, a silent agreement with the world.

And he thinks that of all the things worth defending, if he could only choose one, it would be that, that one selfish little thought.

 


	4. Part 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes he misses everything he’s ever owned, every pair of boots, every blanket, pillow, Pocket Square, or tie. From heirlooms, to hopes, to every pair of socks he’s ever worn. He misses all the things that he thought he would come back to, all the things that he gave to his mother to put in her basement, to every birthday card or Christmas ornament.

Sometimes he misses everything he’s ever owned, every pair of boots, every blanket, pillow, Pocket Square, or tie. From heirlooms, to hopes, to every pair of socks he’s ever worn. He misses all the things that he thought he would come back to, all the things that he gave to his mother to put in her basement, to every birthday card or Christmas ornament.

He never gave anything away; he always thought he’d be back for it or he’d be dead. He misses his couch, and his bed linen and all of those things that he saved so that he could give them to his kids. Partially because he was a sentimental fuck and partially because a little bit of him knew he was always going to be poor. And those things are gone now. There’s nothing left of his accumulated shit, boxes and boxes of loved or tolerated tat.

So he had to buy new tat, new clothes, new furniture, new knickknacks. He even bought himself a rag roll in a junk store in Queens with his first paycheck. He spent the rest on one months rent, and then the next week he bought a mattress to put on the empty floor of his apartment and a fifty pack of noodles. But he still misses it all, misses having evidence of a life before the last year. So he gathers proof of his presence like a detective twenty years after the fact, keeping receipts and torn clothes and old boots, and writes notes and leaves messages, so that if he ever forgets again he’ll know that he lived.

Steve adjusts his jacket in the mirror, it’s not well fitting, but Bucky is fairly sure that if he takes Molly’s laundry to the launderette with theirs she’ll fit it for them. He runs his hand thought his hair, feeling the cold fingers on his scalp.

“I dunno, I think this one looks nice,” Bucky gestures vaguely. Steve pulls it around his waist; tries to put his hands in pockets sewn shut, and tries to play it off like he was going for his pants pockets. “It makes you look sharp.”

“Yeah, but the brown one made me look scholarly.”

“No, it didn’t. You looked like a professor who got laid off because of his alcoholism after the death of his wife.”

“Ouch.”

“I’m trying to help you.”

Bucky already has a blazer, because in order to go to dinner with one of his colleagues he first had to get the job. Steve thought he would go to dinner on Thursday in his hoody and a pair of jeans. But Davey is taking them to a nice place, he looked it up on the wireless and everything.

So they buy the least ugly ties in the discount bin, a comb, and hope that nobody notices that they didn’t buy new shoes.

…

Sometimes he worries that he’ll go home and Steve won’t be there and he won’t ever come back. He worries that something terrible will happen to someone somewhere and Steve won’t be Steve anymore, he’ll disappear and reappear in the newspaper.

CAPTAIN AMERICA TAKEN DOWN IN COMBAT

The apartment will be cold, dark, and empty like it used to be, and he’ll have to figure out how to live, how to say sorry for all the times he couldn’t, and say thank you for all the times he didn’t know how. He’ll go to work and come back, and he’ll probably jump off a bridge because how is he meant to live in a world where Steve doesn’t. He’s never lived in a world where Steve doesn’t.

Steve is the only thing he’s got left, the only thing that he never lost, the only thing that stuck around. So every time he opens the door and the lights are on, he lets go of his breath, because he hasn’t figured out how to breath without him yet, how to live half empty, grasp onto the ends of the straws and call it a good life. So the joy builds in him like grass growing, like the temperature of his existence rising.

And then it stops.

Steve’s sitting on the couch with his head in his hands, flinching slightly at the opening door and he goes from what he thought was relief to horror in a matter of seconds.

He creeps in, like he thinks Steve doesn’t know he’s there. He skirts around the room, shifting, hunched, trying to locate a catalyst. There is nothing, and Steve inhales shakily and pinches the bridge of his nose. Bucky inches into the kitchen and then inches out again, circling silently like a confused predator. He wants to give; his instinct is to give, because what else is there to do. But he hasn’t seen Steve tearful in years, decades. He’s always so composed, always so composed until he suddenly isn’t.

So he creeps, and Steve doesn’t look at him, he just takes deep breaths and sniffs and tries to get his shit together, but badly. And Bucky finds himself sitting, perched, on the window seat, above his rifle, three feet behind the nape of Steve’s neck and the delicate, sewn up slit where the shotgun is hiding. And he wants to reach out, reach out like he always wants to do, but he can’t bear to remind Steve of anything but who he used to be. So silently he removes his arm, and he rests his forehead on the top curve of Steve’s spine, human hand folded over his chest, holding onto Steve’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, because he is. He is _so_ sorry, for everything. Steve sniffs and puts his hand over Bucky’s fleshy fingers.

“It’s not you’re fault,” he whispers back.

“I know. But you never deserved this.”

…

The apartment is silent, because they are silent. The air is still and cool and all the windows are open because the breeze is soft and they are trying to be soft. Their dinner plates sit on the coffee table, and Bucky lets them sit there, knowing that its not the time. They made Steve’s mothers baked potato casserole, and drank Irish cream, and they’re all curled up on the couch with the blanket from the bed.

He’s got his hand holding onto the back of Steve’s neck while he reads the book that he borrowed from Davey, because he likes to feel connected, and at least they’re being sad together. Sometimes he forgets that Steve is just as much out of time as he is. He misses his family too, he misses that old apartment, he misses all of his own accumulated shit. So he figures that he’ll go out to that op shop in Queens and get Steve a rag doll too, because he shouldn’t be so selfish all the time, thinking he’s the only one a little too fucked up to function.

And he holds onto Steve because he would burn this whole city down, loose everything he’s got over and over again just to keep him here. There is nothing he wouldn’t do, nothing it wouldn’t give up. So he holds onto Steve. And Steve holds onto him, hand on his knee, sad eyes reading newspaper lines.

Bucky stares at him, gazing over every line on his face, every contour, and he could say something. He could say something sweet, something loving, comforting, something true, literally anything true. He could tell a story, bring something back, he could shed a little light, he could go to sleep right here because Steve is the only person that he feels safe enough to fall asleep in front of. He could reach over and kiss his temple like his little sister used to do. He could. But he doesn’t, he does nothing, he’s been doing nothing this whole time, because speaking is terrifying and there’s nothing to be done.

What has he got to offer but some old world safety, some person that used to be reliable, he’s got no gifts that’ll help him. He’s just some person that used to be familiar.

So instead he rubs the back of Steve’s neck and looks back down.

…

Steve’s all wrapped around his head when he wakes up because Steve shifts in his sleep like he’s still scared of sleeping at the wrong angle and waking up dead even though his lungs are good now. He’s got his forehead resting on Steve’s chest, listening to his good lungs do their work, and he feels like there is a warm blanket over his consciousness.

He dreamt about the old apartment, but it was as if the two periods of his life were converging, a head on car collision in slow motion, a random assortment of entangled items. It had the layout of the old apartment, the windows facing the ally, the old stain glass in the bathroom, the old furniture mixed in with the new. His favorite pair of socks, a quilt his mother gave him, his uniform hanging over the door and Davey’s book on the counter. His senses wash in and out like the tide and he sifts through them, listening and then seeing and then feeling and back again. A soft rotation, like it would be too much to interpret it all at once.

He rounds the corner to the living room and there’s Steve. Steves. The version from after sits on the right side of the couch, and the version from before sits on the left. They look up from their identical sketchbooks to smile at him. He feels the joy and tries to reach out. But the tips of his fingers have fingernails and bones and veins and that’s not right. It’s not right. And he realizes, all of his senses back again all at once that he is not the right one. He’s not the one that he is. The one that he isn’t has his arm around Steve’s throat, because now there is just the one, even though he can’t tell which. All that he knows is that an identical face is staring back at him, his knife in his hand, drawing blood from a delicate neck.

_“Он никогда не был твоим.” He was never yours._

As gently as he can, he pushes, wriggling, dipping, and Steve, still sleeping, lets him go. The warmth that washed over him changes to a chill and he stands for a moment, staring numbly, looking around at reality, not quiet sure if that’s what it is. Steve rolls over, and Bucky says nothing. Because sometimes, when he’s is still, that age old saying swings through him like a tennis racket beating balls at his insides. But this time it’s different. Resolve fills him like he’s spent all this time treading water and he’s suddenly remembered how to swim.

 _I can’t help you_ , an inside voice recites, trying to get his mouth to say the words, _I can’t help you. You are the only person that I have ever wanted to help and I can’t. I am broken, and afraid, and I’m different from when we were young. But I want to help you. I will do everything I can to keep you; I will stop at nothing to get you wherever you’re going. You don’t ever have to be afraid again._

…

They’re sitting on the couch in their good going-out clothes, brushed teeth, combed hair, sitting on their hands, waiting for a text or a doorbell.

“When do you think was the last time we went out dinner? Like, properly.”

Bucky leans back like he’s a calm human being, which he super isn’t. Especially not in this moment and waits for Steve to say something comforting.

“Not in the current century, unless getting take away counts.”

He remembers going out when he was young to be like meditation, seeing how long he could go without thinking of anything. Without concentrating or caring, without trying to calculate the bill before it came, without thinking about whether Steve was okay without him, whether he’d make it to work tomorrow. It did him no good. Going out was just a slightly more sophisticated version of self-destruction. He can recognize that now.

But at least he felt confident then, now he feels old and blind and rhythmless.

“We used to be so good at this.”

“You used to be so good at this. I was never good at this.”

Bucky crosses his arms and then uncrosses them again because he ironed this shirt and he’s not going to ruffle it now. Steve is smiling at the window when he looks over, softly, like he’s following a breadcrumb trail he left for himself.

Steve shakes his head and rubs his eyes and leans back with a sign like someone who is very old. Which he is.

“I was so envious at the time. That you got to go out and I had to stay home.”

He stares at the side of Steve’s face because if he had been jealous it never showed. The nights when he came stumbling in, collapsing into their single bed all he remembers is Steve’s exasperated face, some drunken cuddling and waking up to the smell of coffee stronger than the Empire State was tall. He never sensed any envy, if anything the opposite. Contempt.

“Really?”

It just comes out of him like the overflow of a glass and Steve looks at him with his eyebrows raised like he’s surprised nobody caught on sooner. And now he has to defend himself.

“Its not like I wanted to go or anything, you never came back happier than when you left. But I just hated… I just hated how you kept going somewhere that I couldn’t go with you. It felt wrong.”

For a moment he’s lost for words because it seems so far fetched, like what’s he meant to do with this information? Is he meant to apologize, thank him? What is there to do?

So he looks away, and he rubs his knees like a high school junior preparing to ask the prettiest senior girl to dance. He feels like a kid.

“I… I never meant for that.” And its not like he can say out loud _‘hey, yeah, so I had to find a way of letting off steam, because it was so hard to be in love with you and have you there all the time and it hasn’t stopped being hard since, but I’m trying to be better.’_ So instead: “But the best part of the night was always coming home to you.”

And he reached out, put his arm over Steve’s shoulder, pushing his hand through his hair, ruffling him. Trying to say all the things he’s got in his head and in his heart, and it probably doesn’t come across the way he wants it to, damn near nothing does. But he tries.

And Steve leans back into his hand, and he almost feels serene. Then Davey knocks on the door.

…

When he was seventeen a boy in his class got beaten up to within an inch of his life by a gang of teenagers, most bones broken, left to die in the street. His parents didn’t even give him time to recover before shipping him off to a hospital upstate to avoid embarrassment, told everyone he had gotten polio. Bucky learned years later than he’d hung himself from the windowsill with a bed sheet. They hadn’t been friends; he’d known well enough not to be friends with a boy with that sort of reputation.

But he thought about him a lot.

His name was Patrick and he was smart, but not a good fighter and Bucky did nothing to protect him. He could have done, Patrick might not have been a good fighter, but he was. He should have done something to keep him from his end. But, in the end, he didn’t, he let the fear take him by the hand and lead him in the opposite direction, let him imagine his own body swinging by the neck from a bed sheet, beaten up in some bad alley for the wrong reputation.

And now, here he is, staring at Steve and Davey, watching them bounce questions back and forth, finding out more about each other like cartographers or journalists. And Bucky realizes slowly, from over the rim of his wine glass, that he’s got that sort of reputation. And this is probably all a ploy. Give it a couple of hours and Davey is going to drag him out to the alley by his collar and even though he’s a good fighter he won’t be able to fight back because he deserves this. And he’ll hang himself from the bed sheets when he’s sent to the hospital upstate. His life will flash before his eyes and he’ll see all the perfect moral symmetry of his story, some punishing force. Perhaps all of his suffering can be traced back to not protecting Patrick Sweeney when he could have done.

He drinks some more wine and waits.

A lot of people have tried to kill him; none of them have ever taken him out to dinner first. And Davey’s looking at Steve like how you look at someone who’s, like, brand new, like a baby giraffe taking its first steps. And Steve is looking so relieved that he’s managing not to say anything he doesn’t want to say and Bucky is staring at them both because Patrick didn’t get this. Patrick was so young, and too smart, and too obvious and no one saw him and thought _‘I should take this young man out to dinner because he clearly doesn’t understand the results of his actions or how toxic this world really is.’_ And the injustice eats at him because that’s what he should have done.

…

He doesn’t get visibly drunk, but he gets drunk. He’s always been a quiet guy, and he’s under no pressure to contribute. Steve and Davey are quite happy to babble to each other and he’s free to go quietly mad outside of their peripheral vision. Davey certainly didn’t notice, and if Steve does, he doesn’t make light of it. He’s always surprised by all the things Steve doesn’t make light of, because he knows that Steve knows the moment that he puts the flat of his palm against Bucky’s lower spine as they’re walking away from Davey’s cab.

Bucky leans into him, and they’re silent.

…

Steve sits him down on the sofa and strokes his hair before disappearing into the haze of all the background noise. Bucky puts his feet up on the coffee table and its got to that end of the day where having his arm attached starts to get really fucking uncomfortable and he should take it off, but he’s too exhausted. Every limb feels bolted to the floor and his brain is running on custard. Thick custard.

“Do you remember Patrick Sweeny?” he asks the air, perhaps too loud or perhaps too quiet. A hand appears on his shoulder.

“I think so, he was in our class. You told me he got sick and had to go stay in the country?”

He hadn’t remembered that, but it all comes flooding back to him and it’s like being stabbed from behind. He’s almost certain that if he looked down he would see the hand on his shoulder holding onto his still beating heart.

“I lied.” He sniffs, “A bunch of kids from our school dragged him into the alley beside the cinema where he worked, broke damn near every bone in his body and left him barely breathing in a dumpster for the rats. When he was found, his family sent him to some barbaric institution. And then he hung himself.”

There is silence from behind him, the sort of silence that seems to stretch on forever in front of him and behind. Another hand reaches his other shoulder, finding the steam between flesh and metal and gently massaging it. He knows.

“That was such a long time ago, why are you thinking about that now?”

“I went to see him, in that place. I told you I was visiting some distant relative, but I took the train. It was the ugliest place I’ve ever seen and he so was surprised to see me. He was all roughed up and thin and old looking. He told me not to hug him when I left because they might think that I was the same and lock me up too. A month later and he was dead.”

One of the hands rubs at the back of his head, fingers working through his hair and he’s crying, but only in the way that tears are rolling down his cheeks like ripples in a pond.

“It wasn’t you’re fault.”

“I could have protected him.”

“You can’t protect someone from the whole world. You were just a kid then.”

“I should have been able to save him.”

“But you couldn’t. And that’s all there is to it.”

“I’m sorry for lying to you.”

“Its okay.”

And arms wrap around him, cheek to cheek, chest pressed to the top of his shoulders, a kiss to his head, enveloped like a warm bath. Steve guides him to the bedroom like a lamb, hands in hands, boots taken off, blankets drawn up to his chin while he cries. Steve tells him that its all going to be alright.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Whats up? Yeah, so this is mostly for my own benefit, but if you enjoy it, that would be nice


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